It's great,
but it's still a shooter. At least they kept it old school.

The evil Bydo empire isn't really
back this time, but they've caused war machines previously used to defend the
earth to turn on their makers.Once
the threat on the earth is neutralized, it's off to the Bydo core once again.

While
the plot and gameplay are still mostly recycled from the old games, the graphics
are most definately not.In the first
original R-Type game for the Playstation, you pick from one of three different
ships to pilot through entirely 3D levels.

Getting
right down to it,The ships are great.There's the original R9, with its great blue reflective laser beams and
it's somewhat improved yellow air-to-ground laser.There's my personal favorite, the RX, with its interesting
tentacle force, which changes depending on which way you move.Then there's the difficult-to-use R13, which really can't be summarized.

First,
I want to talk about the individual ships, because they really are something.

R9
is the classic R-Type ship from the original.Its force pod, when separated from the ship, has a multi-directional shot.The blue weapon is a reflective laser, which is really the only weapon
for this ship.The red weapon just
shoots rings straight ahead, which don't do much damage and are quite easily stopped.The yellow weapon now fires at an angle, which really improves it, and
then does the normal snake-along-the-ground thing it always has.It would've been better if it could skip over small holes.The beam weapon goes through stuff, and is very powerful.The missiles are more like dumb-fire missiles now than seeking
missiles.While they still do seek
enemies, they don't do it much.

The
RX, which is quite popular, is the most diverse of all the ships.Its force pod, when separated from the ship, fires up to three parallel
shots at a time.What's great about
it is it's self-guiding, and auto-aiming.It rotates automatically to shoot at whatever enemies it sees.The blue weapon is a spread-and-seek dual-beam.When you move away, it closes and fires two constant blue beams in parallel,
which can lock on to more powerful enemies and keep hitting them until they die.When you move toward the force pod, it opens up and fires two diagonal
lasers that are otherwise the same as when it's closed.The red weapon goes directly forward.When open, it's a very large constant beam, but when closed, it's small
and very powerful.The yellow weapon
is probably where it gets its tentacle force name, and I can't think of any other
way to describe it.The beam weapon
is the least powerful, stopping when it hits something.The missile drops down at an angle, explodes when it hits something,
and has a napalm effect going forward.

R13
is the most difficult to adjust to, but is still very good.The force pod doesn't fire when separated from the ship, but instead has
a persistent beam of energy connected to the ship that bends around and loops
depending on your movements.Also,
if you launch the force pod onto something that can take a lot of damage, it grapples
onto the target and stays there until its target dies.The best thing about it is that you can charge your beam weapon without
losing the connecting beam.The beam
weapon is the best of the three, firing seeking lightning bolts that can split
and do severe damage.The blue weapon
is rather weak, with very limited seeking properties.The red weapon fires a beam directly forward, and leaves trails that do
damage when you move up or down.The
yellow weapon fires a laser rotating from down to up, damaging anything on the
force pod's side of the screen.

All
the delta weapons damage everything on the screen, so there's no reason to go
into those.

I
have always been an R-Type fan.The
game is, at times, frustratingly difficult, but that makes it all the better when
you finally win.It also gives it
much replay value.I hate easy games
anyway.This game remains true to
the play style of the original, while adding some enhancements (i.e. Delta Weapon).

The
3D graphics aren't the best I've ever seen, but they are good enough.Most of the time you aren't really paying them any mind anyway because
you're too busy dodging enemies and positioning your force pod.The sound is pretty much what you'd expect from a side-scrolling shooter.As with any R-Type game, what it really all comes down to is the game play,
which is great.

The
ships really made this game.They're
so different it's almost like playing three different side-scrolling shooters.However, they've all maintained the R-Type quality we've come
to expect.

The
only thing I've ever missed from an R-Type game is the lack of multi-player support.Aside from that, there aren't many improvements that could be made.

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